Maya Jenkins

About Maya.

Maya Jenkins is currently a Senior Policy Analyst for Special Projects at Americans for Financial Reform/Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, where she works to develop strategies for reimagining and implementing a financial regulatory system that serves the public interest.

See my work
Portrait of Maya Jenkins, smiling, in round glasses and a purple top.
hi, it’s mePhoto by Victoria Jackson

In government

Before joining AFR/AFREF, she was a Policy Analyst at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, where she helped develop and implement rules and regulatory frameworks for the nation’s largest banks.

Before that she was a Legislative Aide in the office of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, covering banking and capital markets.

A Senate hearing broadcast: Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks at the dais with a staff member seated behind her.
a Senate hearing with Senator Warren

In publishing

She serves on the Board of Directors of The Common, a literary magazine based at Amherst College. She was a 2022–23 Black Voices in the Public Sphere Fellow at Boston Review, where she commissioned and edited essays from writers and academics with a focus on colonialism and racial capitalism.

Education

She holds an A.B. from Harvard University, where she studied sociology and English. She graduated from Harvard College with Highest Honors in her major, sociology. She served as the Vice President of the Institute of Politics and on both the Sociology Advisory Council and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Standing Committee on Public Service. During her undergraduate studies, she also spent six months at the University of Cambridge studying Human, Social and Political Sciences.

Five people at an outdoor evening event, one speaking at a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics podium while the others look on.
Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics
A woman in a patterned cardigan speaks into a microphone to a seated audience at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.
speaking at the Institute of Politics
Maya Jenkins, smiling, in round glasses and a patterned cardigan, stands beside Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, in a gray cassock and gold cross, in front of framed John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum posters.
at the JFK Jr. Forum with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II

In the press